Electric contact couplings of the above-mentioned kind are known wherein the contact elements are formed as pin and socket contacts. These guarantee a high transmission assurance, but are mechanically sensitive. They require an exact centering and parallel coupling planes. With tilted insertion or imprecise centering the coupling can lead to tilted and knicked contact pins. Further such electric contact couplings are known to have pressure loaded contacts in which one contact element is stationary while the other is spring loaded in the coupling direction. These contact elements are mechanically insensitive and have high requirements both as to the centering and the parallelism of the coupling planes. Their transmission quality is indeed moderate. The contact surfaces are relatively small and their contamination produces high resistance and signal attenuation.
The usual electrical contact couplings, which for example are used in combination with mechanical couplings for rail vehicles, have heavy rectangular housings with a protective flap, which flap is either self opening or forcibly controlled and which protects the contact elements in the uncoupled condition against contamination. The housings are shiftable on rods or rails to move the built in contact elements in the coupling plane. The movement of the housings takes place either by way of an individual drive, for example a pneumatic cylinder, or by way of a drive coupled with the mechanical coupling and which externally engages the housings. The housings are customarily suspended or supported with a certain amount of play with the positioning of the housings relative to one another in a coupling procedure being achieved by way of centering pins and bushings on the housings. The positioning in the axial direction is achieved by the pressing force of the mechanical coupling and through springs or rubber elements.